A Portland police review board urged the chief to fire a captain after finding he inappropriately touched female employees and escalated an off-duty road rage confrontation by flashing his gun and badge at another motorist.

The Police Review Board members found Todd Wyatt "untruthful," questioned his ability to perform with integrity, and voted 5 to 1 to recommend his termination, according to board documents made public for the first time Wednesday.

"This is not what police accountability looks like," Mary-Beth Baptista, the director of the Independent Police Review Division, said Wednesday.

Baptista, whose division is the intake center for complaints against police, was a voting member of the board that reviewed Wyatt's behavior. The board also included a peer officer, Assistant Chief Larry O'Dea, police Director of Services Mike Kuykendall and a citizen member.

"In my role as the director of IPR, when I see such a strong recommendation after such thoughtful deliberation that was not followed, that concerns me," she said. "I'm concerned that the chief and Mayor Adams did not follow this near unanimous recommendation."

The chief declined to release the letter he sent to Wyatt seeking his demotion. In an email to The Oregonian Wednesday, Reese said he and Adams determined a demotion was "the appropriate level of discipline" after reviewing the investigations, hearing from Wyatt during a due process hearing and consulting with the city attorney's office.

"It's important to understand that the Performance Review Board (PRB) process is only a recommendation and one step in a complex process. I take discipline decisions very seriously and conduct a thorough analysis of the investigative materials. I also discuss proposed discipline with the City Attorney's Office to make sure that we are being fair and consistent with past discipline decisions," Reese wrote.

Instead, Wyatt became the subject of an employee complaint in 2011. The employee reported that Wyatt had inappropriately touched a woman employee's leg.

Further investigation by police internal affairs revealed that other civilian female employees under Wyatt's command had similar complaints about inappropriate physical contact, including one who said he touched her on her upper thigh and lingered.

Wyatt addressed the Police Review Board, which reviewed the investigation. Wyatt told the board he was sorry and that he "gets it." He said he had apologized to one of the female employees on four separate occasions and that he'd attended the city's sexual harassment training four times.

"He said he never intended for anyone to interpret his actions in this manner, and he is sorry that they did," the board's synopsis says. "He never heard that anyone was unhappy with him touching someone on the elbow or knee or back." He said he touches people when greeting them, a practice he learned from his superiors.

The documents also reveal that Wyatt lost his temper during an unrelated, recorded meeting with one of his subordinates and the employee's union representative. The police review board listened to audiotape of the meeting. Members described Wyatt as losing his temper and threatening to have the subordinate arrested.

Wyatt, when explaining his behavior to the board, said he was trying to bring reason to a meeting with a person who "was screeching like an animal and hollering." The board said Wyatt had completely mischaracterized the other person's demeanor, concluding, "that is not what is on the tape."

Witnesses who complained about Wyatt's behavior, on the other hand, were consistently found to be credible, the board found.

View full sizeMary-Beth Baptista, director of the city's Independent Police Review Division, voted to recommend Todd Wyatt be fired. She said the chief's demotion of Wyatt did not represent police accountability, noting the majority of the review board had recommended termination.The Oregonian

The police review board also reviewed Wyatt's August 2011 off-duty encounter in Idaho with another motorist. Driving home in his pickup with his family from an Idaho vacation, Wyatt held up his police badge and holstered revolver to his windshield. Wyatt said he intended to scare off a driver who cut him off twice and kept braking in front of his pickup truck, according to his trial testimony later.

Wyatt, who at the time of the Idaho confrontation was captain of the Portland police traffic division, was acquitted of a criminal charge in Idaho.

The police review board voiced concern about Wyatt's "quick temper," his failure to de-escalate the conflict and his poor judgment for not calling law enforcement himself.

Board members also were disturbed that he presumed the other motorist was possibly a gang member because of the car's tinted windows, the driver's flat-billed baseball cap and the car's "low-rider" appearance. The other motorist had no gang ties.

The board's report said members were disturbed about Wyatt's "jump to judgment" and "skewed perception of reality."

Based on their review of both misconduct cases, board members voted to fire Wyatt. In their talks, the majority of board members felt a demotion or even Wyatt's return to a patrol assignment would not be sufficient, considering the gravity of Wyatt's "poor judgment and untruthfulness/untrustworthiness."

One member "believed that he manipulated the truth in these encounters and never saw himself at fault," and instead mischaracterized the motives of those who complained of his behavior, according to the board documents.

In considering all the allegations, Baptista said the majority of the board was concerned about Wyatt’s ability to observe an event, and provide a reasonable response and then reflect accurately what occurred.

“Is this a person who we can trust to do the basic tenets of what it requires to be a police officer? The board did not trust that he was able to do that, and he should not be a Portland police officer,’’ Baptista said.

Several board members said it would be difficult to trust Wyatt to "write a police report, to take the stand, or to abide by the basic tenets of the job,'' the board's report said.

Baptista said the case and the police bureau's summary demonstrates there's need for additional reforms to police oversight.

She said this case has convinced her that the review board's summary of its discipline recommendations are too heavily redacted, leaving too many questions for the public. The report also doesn't include whether the chief adopted the board's recommendations.

"I think they need to write down what the final discipline is," Baptista said. "And if there's a departure from the recommendation, we should know why."

When asked if Mayor Charlie Hales planned to review Wyatt's demotion, his spokesman Dana Haynes said, "The mayor hasn't spoken to the chief
about this particular officer yet, and doesn't have a direct comment. But eight days into the administration, the mayor and the chief have begun having regular meetings, and that will continue.''